4 Things to Watch Out For When Buying a Birmingham Rental Property (One Will Surprise You)

Today we are sharing 4 things that you want to watch out for when you’re choosing a rental property in Birmingham to buy as an investment. One of these things might surprise you. Location Always take location into consideration before you buy. Location influences demand and it directly affects the amount of your rental rates. Location can sometimes be a huge negative for your investment property, and there are a few white elephant issues to carefully avoid. For our purposes, white elephant issues include things like the house sitting too close to a busy street or being up high on a remote hill. Take note of your location. Age of Home Pay attention to the year the home was built. Birmingham was built in a few different waves. In the 1930s and the 1940s, the first wave of construction went up and those houses are constructed much differently than those that were built in the second wave, or the 1950s and 1960s. The homes that went up in the 1950s and 1960s are marked by modern amenities such as updated electrical and plumbing systems that homes built earlier simply do not have. Find out when your home was built because the amount you will spend on repairs and maintenance will be impacted by whether your home was built during the first wave, the second wave or the subsequent waves of construction. Age of Systems You need to know how old the home’s systems are. What we mean by that is the roof, the plumbing, the HVAC system and other big ticket items. If you don’t get them right on the front end, they are going to be very costly to fix or replace on the back end. Trees We promised you a surprise and here it is: trees. More money has been spent by investors on trees than on any other single item. Go up to the house and look at the number of trees that will need to be cut down. It’s an easy thing to forget about or ignore, but the trees are going to make a difference. There is no return for cutting down trees, but there is a huge expense. Find out how many trees you need to remove before you buy a property. If you have any questions about these four things, or you need more information about buying investment property in Birmingham, please contact us at GK Houses.